Republican lawmakers from the government oversight and judiciary committees are investigating whether the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) broke the law when officials spied on employees’ emails.

 

California Representative Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and Senator Chuck Grassley from Iowa, ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, wrote a letter to the Office of Management and Budget asking the Obama administration to provide a “complete assessment” of government policy on email surveillance at every federal agency.

 

The request comes after six FDA employees working for the Office of Device Evaluation filed a lawsuit claiming that after they and three colleagues complained to Congress about the FDA’s approval of unsafe medical devices, the FDA spied on the whistleblowers for two years. The FDA not only spied on government email accounts but also private ones of employees. FDA managers, including Jeffrey Shuren, Director of FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health, began using automated software to collect screen captures of the scientists’ computers.

-Noel Brinkerhoff, David Wallechinsky

 

Issa, Grassley Ask Obama Administration To Release Policies On E-Mail Surveillance (by Lisa Rein, Washington Post)

Letter to Jeffrey Zients (Representative Darrell Issa and Senator Charles Grassley) (pdf)